Quintal (q)

Metric (SI)Traditional unit (still used in some regions)

100 kilograms. Still used for crop yields in India, France and parts of Europe and South America.

1 quintal = 100 kilograms (exactly).

About the quintal

Romance languages gave this unit its name, from the idea of a hundred base units, while German and Russian forms such as Zentner and tsentner follow the same logic. Before metrication a quintal was a hundred of some local pound, so it ranged widely: about 48.95 kilograms in France, around 46 in Spain, about 58.75 in Portugal and 50 in Germany.

The metric quintal fixed the figure at 100 kilograms, the value used here. Farmers in France, Italy, Poland, India and Indonesia still quote yields and prices in it, and wholesale grain in Ethiopia and Eritrea is priced per quintal, as it is in Brazil and some other South American countries. The United States wrote it into law in 1866 as 100 kilograms, though neither the US nor NIST uses it now. English-speaking trade once used the word as another name for the hundredweight, and in Newfoundland a 112 pound quintal was the salt-cod unit into the 1960s.

Sources: Wikipedia: Quintal

Quintal conversion chart

1 quintal expressed in every other weight & mass unit:

More Metric (SI) units

• kilogram (weight & mass)
• gram (weight & mass)
• milligram (weight & mass)
• microgram (weight & mass)
• metric ton (weight & mass)
• carat (weight & mass)
• meter (length)
• kilometer (length)
• centimeter (length)
• millimeter (length)
• micrometer (length)
• nanometer (length)
• picometer (length)
• decimeter (length)
• hectometer (length)
• decameter (length)

All Metric (SI) units

Browse all weight & mass units.